The story we heard John tell us about Jesus and a blind man
is a story of life for us.

When I first knew this passage was coming, the image which
came to my mind was that of the famous eye-chart that has the
huge letter "E" at the top and increasingly smaller
letters underneath.

I've been wearing glasses since elementary school and can't
remember how many I've broken or outgrown. As I look ahead I
expect I will have to deal with cataracts, glaucoma, or macular
degeneration. Unless death intervenes sooner, I will not be exempt
from the reality of aging.

So I took my glasses off to prepare this sermon to help me
see this story beyond simply a story of keen eyesight. I'm going
to take them off to preach the rest of this sermon and run the
risk of saying more than I'm prepared to say when I can't quite
make out the words on the pages I've prepared.

I like a great healing story as much as anything. It reminds
me that life is not carved in stone. There are all manner of
strange and wonderful aspects of life. I and you, and us together,
are not stuck simply continuing to be who we have been. A healing
story is usually a story of conversion.

In this particular incident we hear a lot of blame going on.
Becoming blind to blame is high on the Jesus eye-chart.

As you listen in on conversations at home or work or on talk
shows or news, or even in your own heart, how much time is spent
in blaming or avoiding being blamed.

The story we have heard begins with a question from Jesus'
disciples, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents,
causing him to be born blind?"

In the Gospels the disciples are most frequently caught being
blind to the real point of life. They keep trying to turn Jesus'
presence into a technical rule-book--just do things this way
and you can be in control of others and GOD.

Jesus is quite clear that the issues of cause-and-effect,
the issues of who's to blame, are not where real life is going
to be found.

Another way of saying that becoming blind to blame is high
on Jesus' eye-chart, is to put it the way Jesus put it, "Look
for what GOD can do."

GOD can do more than turn a pig's ear into a purse. An entrepreneur
can make a good living selling pigs ears to pet owners as a chew
toy. GOD can do more than that.

GOD can light up your life and my life and our life with meaning
and purpose.

We are looking at how to shape a Mission Statement to focus
on what GOD can do with St. Luke's for the rest of this year
and for the next 3 years before we get to our 150th anniversary.

As you have heard me say since I came here. We have been on
a 40-year, 45-degree slope of decline. It hasn't mattered who
the pastor has been or what programs have been tried, nothing
has gotten us off this pattern. It has continued while I have
been here.

I expect there is more than enough blame to go around.

In my weaker moments I blame it on a pastor 40 years ago who
left his wife and ran off with a church employee and that never
really having been dealt with and the unhealed part of that event
being a big ghost or secret in the congregation.

In my weaker moments I blame it on a culture that has shifted
from rural to urban values around issues of entertainment and
individualism.

In my weaker moments I blame it on increasing knowledge of
how the world works and how we no longer believe in a perfect
creation that has fallen and can only be restored to perfection
through a bloody sacrifice of "God's Son," but now
must wrestle with what it means to have evolved from simple cells
to complex, self-aware, beings who know the earth is not the
center of the universe, and that the cause-and-effect physics
of Newtonian machines needs to be looked at through the lens
of stellar relativity and quantum indeterminacy.

The reality is that GOD's people are always messing-up, if
you and me, are any example. Just this past week I let what to
me was an overly busy schedule get in the way of visiting with
Daisy before she died. There is no excuse for that kind of behavior,
even if it wouldn't have fixed our issues of decline nor been
a major cause of further decline.

The reality is that the world is always at a different place
than GOD. It is either much more rigid than GOD or much more
independent than GOD. Cause-and-effect works well in the world,
even if it doesn't work well with a living GOD who can make all
things new.

The reality is that world views come and world views go. There
is no one final answer to the way things are for the experience
of GOD is larger than any explanation we can come up with.

To get caught up in our weaker moments of blame is to leave
ourselves open to what Paul talked about with the people in Ephesus.
He warned against the murk of smooth, religious sales-talk that
leads us to think that if only we can figure out who is to blame
then we are home free.

I think you all know some religious people who are more than
willing to tell you who is to blame for the difficulties in your
life or the life of the world. Eventually they run out of others
to blame and turn their blame on their listeners. It is true
that if you live by blame you will die by blame.

So, if Jesus' way of looking at the world does not entail
the cause-and-effect of blame (remember him saying from the cross
of his death, "GOD, forgive them, they don't know what they
are doing"), what does it mean to look at the world through
Jesus' eyes.

The only kind of Mission Statement that will be of help to
us is that of placing ourselves in the light of Jesus so we can
simply looking for what GOD can do and is doing and risk joining
ourselves with GOD, no matter what. The risk is that we, too,
will be crucified for doing what is right.

In the face of that risk, our life's meaning still lies with
what Paul said to the Ephesians: "So no more stumbling around
with the darkness of cause-and-effect blame. Get on with it!
The good, the right, the true--these are the actions appropriate
for daylight hours. Figure out what will please Christ, and then
do it."

Let us pray:

GOD of Light,
grant
us your light to see
what
will please Christ is
looking
for what you can do
and
grant us courage join you in the doing.
Amen.